I guess it started when writing wasn’t enough anymore. Writing used to be all I needed when I got worked up. Writing was the thing to siphon out all my feelings. Sometimes I think I feel things a lot more than other people, like I take on some of the weight of their sadness or fear or loneliness. That’s what it’s like, a weight. It’s like the lead vests the X-ray technicians put on you to block radiation. But the weight blocks everything—even sunshine feels duller. Writing was a catharsis because it was my way of bursting the balloon that seemed to be swelling inside me. With the sharp nib of my pen, I would jab a hold in the swelling sadness and feel it all drain away, like shedding a heavy jacket. Seeing all my feelings funneled from my brain onto the page made me feel in control—there, in front of me, in something tangible, were all the heavy things in my life. I could crumple them, rip them, even burn them if I wanted. I was in control.

Then one day it wasn’t enough. It was my junior year of high school after my sister and I had gotten busted for having a party while my parents were gone. Having parties in general made me uneasy; lying to my parents was near impossible and always left me wracked with guilt. When my parents finally sat us down, the “talk” they gave us ripped me apart. The guilt was unbearable. They were so disappointed, my dad said, shaking his head. Imagine if something had happened, my mom said, crying. How could they ever trust us again? Their disappointment was like hot knives directly on my heart. Exiled to my room, the silence echoed with the depth of disappointment in my father’s eyes and the bitterness of my mother’s tears. The guilt was oppressing and the weight I felt was everywhere. The very air in the room was lead; my blood was molten steel, dragging itself through my veins. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I just knew that I needed to punish myself—I remember that more than anything, the overwhelming impression that I was wrong, bad, a terrible daughter. Words seemed pointless. I looked dumbly at the pen in my hand and it seemed useless. How could anything I write ease this? How could any collection of words atone for anything? I wanted to suffer, to punish myself, to hurt myself.

My eyes moved to the small craft scissors on my desk. They were for scrapbooking and very sharp. I picked them up and opened them, holding them experimentally against the top side of my wrist. They were cold and my heart was pounding wildly. But the noise in my head was deafening, the guilt was deafening, so I pressed on the blade and dragged it along my skin.

My first thought was of the silence. The rushing in my head was gone. I felt lighter. A small red line appeared, stinging, on my skin. My pounding thoughts stilled as I stared down at the neat red line, heart thudding mutely in the newfound silence. Sure, there was pain, but there was relief. The guilt and disappointment were still there, but I punished myself and took solace in that. I was calmer.

I went to the bathroom and found a cheap single blade razor. I used toenail clippers and extracted the blade, a small piece of metal. Heart racing again, I put the edge to my wrist, just below the first cut. I pushed down and dragged it sideways. I almost gasped at the sudden pain as the blade bit into the skin. The pain was sudden and shot through my brain like lightning, but it cleared my head and brought everything into sharp focus. The cuts weren’t deep or long, just small parallel scratches. But each one was punishment that I bestowed on myself willingly.

The cuts had to draw blood, that was key. The blood was my sort of proof that self-punishment had happened. I got a sick pleasure from seeing the lines of red droplets appear, like a strand of crimson beads. I never cut the insides of my wrists either. That was where real cutters did it, not me. I wasn’t one of them. In my mind, cutters were depressed girls who wore black and listened to emo music. I was happy. I had friends. I liked my life. I just got sad sometimes. Surely that didn’t make me a cutter.

More so, I was embarrassed. Yet, at the same time, a part of me wanted people to see the cuts and ask about them. It was a secret game I played, the “Did They See Them?” game. I wore bracelets on my left hand to cover them and I would forget they were there. As soon as I cut and the acute heaviness disappeared, I would feel normal again, and the Normal Me didn’t cut. The Normal Me played varsity field hockey and did the musicals, and went out with friends on the weekend, friends who knew absolutely nothing about the “Other” Me.

After I cut, I would look back and think how stupid I was being, how I was so blessed in comparison to others and I had no reason to be sad. But still it would come back. Sometimes, it would be a few weeks, other times it would be months. The heavy sadness would return and if it got heavy enough, I would start cutting. But no matter how many times I did it, I never thought of myself as a cutter.

It’s been a few weeks since I last cut. I told myself I would stop once I got to college, because cutting was juvenile and stupid. I made it through my entire freshman year without cutting. Sophomore year is different. I’ve changed and done things I regret, taking some major blows to my self-esteem in the process. I became overwhelmed and just like that slipped back into my old habit.

It’s hard to stop when there’s no one to talk about it with. I’m afraid if I tell my roommate, she’ll look at me like I’m different or fragile or suicidal. I don’t think people understand that I don’t cut because I want to kill myself. I cut to make living easier. It’s a paradox and sometimes I can’t even fathom the stupidity of it. But cutting is a quick-fix coping mechanism, albeit an extremely short-lived one.

So I try to find other ways to cope. I’m trying to get back into writing—it’s difficult when I don’t have time or inspiration—but sometimes just the act of writing, even if it’s just copying poetry or writing nonsense, is enough.

Even now, writing out this journal has helped me identify a lot of the feelings I couldn’t grasp before. And it’s the first time I’ve ever actually written it out before: I’m a cutter.

Silence is my enemy. Emotions fester and grow poisonous in silence. I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it just yet, but writing is easing the burden. Writing takes me one step closer to getting better.